Snow Fences: Then and Now

Snow fences are an increasingly widespread cultural feature in the great east-west “snow belt” of the northern hemisphere. They are there not only to protect railroads, highways and buildings from the hazards of blowing snow, but also whole towns subject to the ravages of avalanches. Although their origin is unknown, their construction and use have been advanced and improved greatly by many experimenters of more than a dozen nationalities since the middle of the 19th century.

A modern example of snow fence use is analyzed for a locally named section of Interstate 80 between Laramie and Rawlins in southern Wyoming known as the “Sno Chi Minh Trail.” Here big systems of mostly 12 feet high snow fences line more than half of the western side of the highway for 50 miles. They have reduced accidents and plowing costs by significantly improving visibility in “ground blizzards” of fast-blowing snow.     

Why the Movies Chose Hollywood

In the early 1900s Hollywood became acknowledged as the world capital of the commercial movie industry. Several factors clearly explain why film makers came to prefer this district of Los Angeles. Compared to other communities of the period. Hollywood possessed a superior geographic situation, affording film directors an ideal climate and ready access to outstanding scenery, talent and ancillary businesses. Once established, the district rapidly realized incomparable economies of scale. Finally, World War I eliminated European competition and solidified Hollywood's preeminent position.     

Landscape,Religion and Folk Art in Mithila: An Indian Cultural Region

Folk art portrays aspects of cultural geography that have been frequently ignored. Important aspects of the cultural geography of Mithila arc illustrated through folk paintings and songs. By understanding the symbolism in folk art, cultural geographers can discover fresh meanings in landscapes and culture, thus gaining a deeper knowledge of the aspirations and behavior of a specific group.     

Mesoamerican Stingless Beekeeping

Stingless beekeeping is practiced throughout Mexico and Central America, from northwestern Mexico to the Azuero Peninsula in western Panama. Within this area three distinct beekeeping regions emerge. On the Yucatan Peninsula beekeeping is an essential component in the agricultural and cultural heritage, technically sophisticated and frequently practiced, Beyond the Yucatan Peninsula and corresponding roughly with the" limits of ancient Mesoamerican civilization, stingless beekeeping occurs but it is of lesser significance in aboriginal and mestizo agriculture and culture, unsophisticated in practice and only occasionally encountered. In areas to the north and south of ancient Mesoamenca's cultural boundaries, stingless beekeeping is of little agricultural or cultural importance, simple in its application and rarely practiced. This study concludes that stingless beekeeping in the New World originated among the Maya of the Yucatan Peninsula and diffused to other indigenous groups within Mesoamertca, and later in a much diluted form to groups beyond Mesoamerica.     

Intensive Agricultural Landscapes of Oceania

Pacific Islanders have adapted over time to a wide range of social and environmental conditions. Subsistence regimes include broad-based fishing and gathering along with horticulture, particularly the cultivation of staple tubers. Agricultural ecosystems on many islands manifest elaborate expressions of greater inputs of labor or the necessity to overcome agronomic constraints to production. Landscapes of intensive agriculture once found throughout Oceania include yam mounds, raised fields, and irrigated terracing. Most of these systems are either abandoned or greatly diminished in scale. Findings from research in the Fiji Islands exemplify some of the forms and functions of these landscapes. Field study at an active system of irrigated terraces for growing taro (Colocasia esculenta) on the remote southern island of Kadavu elucidates the dynamic operations of a gardening strategy that was once much more prevalent throughout the archipelago. Changing political economies across the region may have radically altered humanenvironment relations, but intensive agricultural landscapes endure, providing visible evidence and imparting valuable lessons for traditional cultural ecology in Oceania.     

Common property mapping and the preservation of traditional rights in Chesapeake Bay's oyster fishery, 1892–1914

Conflicts over oysters intensified along the US mid-Atlantic coast as traditional management of these valuable resources broke down in the late nineteenth century. In response, states founded management agencies, and mapping oysters was one of their first activities. Virginia and Maryland's first cartographers favored privatizing common property, an alteration that would have displaced thousands of oystermen and benefited wealthier segments of the industry. Cartographers sought to use maps to expand privatization; however, Chesapeake Bay oystermen were numerous enough to wield political influence, and they rejected one of the first major surveys and shaped the production of the other two, using them to protect their common property while making these rights visible to the State. Many conservation practices in the eastern USA grew out of local people's traditions, and this study explores the role of the mapping process amid the broader context of a shift in the scale of management to state agencies.     

Breaking the Bond: Investigating The Neolithic Expansion in Asia Minor in the Seventh Millennium BC

In the early seventh millennium BC an expansion of the Neolithic economy and sedentism took place in Asia Minor. This occurred nearly two millennia after the emergence of Neolithic societies in southern central Anatolia, which raises the question of how this expansion occurred, and why it came about at this particular moment. This paper considers various elements that might have played a role in this expansion episode, such as climate change, demography, and agricultural and social changes.     

Lamentations 3,1-6: An anti-psalm 23

This essay addresses two different Biblical bulks of text. On the one hand, the essay approaches Psalm 23. On the other hand, however, does the essay equally approach Genesis 4 that documents the chronicles of Cain, Abel, Lemech and the descendents of Adam and Eve after the slay of Abel by Cain. The rationale for addressing simultaneously these two bodies of Biblical text that seem to be divorced from each other, is the following. In the case of both texts, the first encounter with them appears to surrender the impression that two textual components had been glued to each other while lacking any common denominator whatsoever. Nevertheless, in both cases an analytical scrutiny does unveil a cluster of links between the two texts that are seemingly devoid of any reciprocal bond. In the case of Psalm 23, the common denominator between the Psalm's two seemingly detached parts does consist on a tight, detailed analogy between the metaphors utilized to portray the Lord and His pious believer. In the case of Genesis 4, however, the unearthed link between the text's ensemble of components is found to be among the characters that perform along two leading parameters, death and life. Hence in both cases what was initially considered a text that is devoid of a plausible connection between its parts, is found out as a text that its parts are united in the most cogent and equally tight fashion.